I feel that moving to Harvey Nash has really benefited my clients through the opportunities I have here to form positive, close working relationships with colleagues in specialist practices, particularly technology.   This helps to ensure cross fertilisation of talent and is of particular benefit in searching for candidates for roles in the public sector that require commercial experience or specialist experience such as information management expertise.

I joined Harvey Nash after five years in executive search.   I focus on the education search market, particularly Higher and Further Education.   In the Higher Education sector, I have experience of recruiting for a range of roles at different levels, including Vice Chancellor, Pro Vice Chancellor, Executive Dean, Head of School, Research Professor and functional Director.   I have substantial experience too of recruiting to senior level posts in Further Education and in the library sector.  

Harvey Nash has given me the opportunity to build a practice that is dedicated to providing a tailored service to our clients.  My previous career in the public sector – in senior roles in the Department for Education and Skills – has given me a very strong empathy for the needs of institutions to attract and retain talented people.  It has also given me a deep personal commitment to offering a high quality service at a reasonable price which means that we must add value at every stage.

Our focus on quality of service means, for example, that we do all that we can in the initial stages to understand the role and the requirements for the role, offering advice on the candidate profile and ensuring that we understand the performance criteria.  For all levels of role, no matter how specialised, we are finding now that a key requirement for effective performance is the ability to manage relationships successfully, not just internal but also external relationships.  That is something that we invariably explore in depth with candidates.

Having worked for two other executive search firms since I left the public sector, I can say that Harvey Nash is the firm that has offered me the greatest freedom, autonomy and support to develop my own practice and own my client relationships at a senior level. 

I am very excited by the opportunity to build the Education Practice at Harvey Nash, working in a highly stimulating environment with experts in other specialist practices.